want to say Croy’s name out loud. She didn’t want to give the elves any information they didn’t already have. “Assuming he’s still alive. And that he can stay free, with every elf in the Vincularium looking for him.”
“You two,” the elf behind Malden said, and jabbed him in the back with the point of a spear. Not hard enough to pierce his skin. “What’s that you’re saying? Your accents are so thick I can’t understand you. Are you scheming something? Humans are supposed to be tricky sorts. What are you planning?”
“We were discussing which of you is the prettiest,” Malden said.
The elf jabbed Malden again with his spear, harder this time.
“Actually,” Cythera said, “we were just wondering about your accent.”
“Accent? I haven’t got one,” the elf replied. “I talk like an elf.” He did not seem to possess much in the way of imagination.
“Of course, of course,” Cythera said, her voice warm with soothing tones. “Forgive me. I actually meant to inquire how it is that you speak our language, the tongue of Skrae?”
The elf looked deeply confused. Judging by the way his brow beetled and his eyes narrowed, it was a common expression for him to wear. “I don’t speak Skraeling. I speak the tongue of the ancestors.”
“Ah, well,” Malden said, “that explains everything.” He made a face at Cythera, crossing his eyes and sticking his tongue out of one side of his mouth. She almost giggled in response. She had to raise one hand to her mouth to stifle it.
In the process she dropped one of Slag’s ankles. The dwarf stirred in Malden’s arms. One of his eyes opened a crack. “Lad? Am I dead?” he asked.
“I got your antidote, old man,” Malden told him.
“Ah,” Slag said, his chin drifting up and down with the rhythm of Malden’s footsteps. “And then . . . the elves . . .”
“They’ve taken us captive. But they have orders not to kill us. We don’t know why that is.”
“Well,” the dwarf slurred, a sleepy smile playing around his mouth, “that’s easy. They haven’t killed us yet because . . . because . . .”
“Because?” Cythera asked.
“. . . because they’ll want to torture us first. That’s an ancient elfin custom.”
Chapter Sixty-eight
“I’m Balint, by the way,” the female dwarf announced when the two warriors had accepted that their demon had gotten away.
“Well met, milady,” Croy said, bowing low. “I am Sir Croy, a knight of Skrae, and this—” He turned to indicate Mörget, but the barbarian was halfway across the room, pouncing on something. Croy thought he must have found one of the demon’s animate pieces, but when Mörget stood up with a nasty grin, he held something small and wriggling and humanoid in his clenched hand.
“Got you!” the barbarian announced. “Croy, look what I found!”
“That would be mine,” Balint said, sounding annoyed.
Croy shook his head. “It’s all right,” he told Mörget.
“Some kind of cave imp! It was spying on us!”
Croy smiled as politely as he could. “It’s just a knocker,” he explained. “The dwarves use them to scout their tunnels.”
The barbarian stared at the blue-haired thing he clutched. It was tapping frenziedly at his forearm with its long fingers.
“You can put it down now,” Croy said.
Mörget scowled, but he dropped the thing. It came running over to Balint and hid behind her legs. Croy bent low to pat it on the head, but it snapped at his fingers with its nasty teeth.
“Does it have a name?” he asked.
Balint stared at him. “It’s not a pussycat,” she said. “It’s a tool. I don’t name my hammers either.”
“I see.” Croy glanced at the barbarian, who had crouched down and was staring at the knocker with the shrewd eye of a hunter. “Ah, this would be Mörget,” he told the dwarf.
“We’ve met before,” Mörget said. He turned his head and spat copiously on the ground.
“You . . . have?” Croy asked.
“Briefly,” Balint concurred. “Though our meeting was approximately as enjoyable as having the skin flayed off my buttocks.”
“Oh,” Croy said.
“At Redweir,” Mörget explained, “I sought information on this place, and on my demon. The dwarves there were less than helpful. She is the lieutenant of the dwarven envoy there.”
“Ah,” Croy said, “so you must be of noble blood. Well, milady, I—”
“Fuck nobility,” Balint said, scratching one armpit. “My father was a bricklayer, and my mother a cook. I got my job by being more useful than the dwarf who had it before me.”
“I see. And what do you do for the envoy? See